Comments on: A year when government failed ushttp://blogs.reuters.com/david-rohde/2012/12/28/a-year-when-government-failed-us/
Fri, 31 Jul 2015 03:37:49 +0000hourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.2.5By: tmchttp://blogs.reuters.com/david-rohde/2012/12/28/a-year-when-government-failed-us/#comment-2461
Wed, 02 Jan 2013 13:25:53 +0000http://blogs.reuters.com/david-rohde/?p=1411#comment-2461We are the government. We failed ourselves, and for our children.
]]>By: bloggerswamphttp://blogs.reuters.com/david-rohde/2012/12/28/a-year-when-government-failed-us/#comment-2458
Tue, 01 Jan 2013 19:18:53 +0000http://blogs.reuters.com/david-rohde/?p=1411#comment-2458Transparency or corruption. I plan on running in every possible election with the Platform of “Total Transparency” Video everything and post it to the net. Record all phone calls and save all emails to DVD’s available to everyone. Corruption can only thrive in secrecy. Occupy every political forum with Video. I do.
Doug Pederson AKA SpectateSwamp
]]>By: OneOfTheSheephttp://blogs.reuters.com/david-rohde/2012/12/28/a-year-when-government-failed-us/#comment-2456
Tue, 01 Jan 2013 01:25:21 +0000http://blogs.reuters.com/david-rohde/?p=1411#comment-2456@JL4,

You seem unaware that politicians of neither major party are serious about shrinking our government. That’s why the wringing of hands and wailing when a group be so bold as to refuse to “go along” with endless increases in America’s Debt Limit.

The debt limit is a “blank check” that “we, the people” must eventually pay. Even though NO ONE knows what this money will be spent for when it is authorized, we know with absolute certainty that all those dollars WILL be spent AND MORE!

So long as increases are NECESSARY in America’s debt limit, America is not living within it’s means. This has been the case for so long that many economic ignoramuses accept the idea that America can keep printing dollars without limit and need never fear inflation.

So if you would “blame” those who would absolutely DEMAND that America reverse the present course to economic suicide, I must question your loyalty to this country as a citizen. If temporary “dysfunction” be necessary to end endemic fiscal irresponsibility as a matter of day-to-day government policy, America needs more of this…not less!

]]>By: COindependenthttp://blogs.reuters.com/david-rohde/2012/12/28/a-year-when-government-failed-us/#comment-2455
Mon, 31 Dec 2012 19:56:11 +0000http://blogs.reuters.com/david-rohde/?p=1411#comment-2455The failure of the federal government can be summarized by the fact that it is involved in too many issues for which it is not designed to address, nor should it address. Our constitution was structured so that 50 entities (the states) could be address the issues most important to the individuals they represent–not a centralized government trying to secure compromise across 300 million persons.

Looking to the Beltway to design legislation where “one size fits all” is impossible–and is responsible for both the corruption and failure of the political process. The government should go back to relying on the private sector to deliver those services which government cannot efficiently deliver, and exclusively focus on those which are national in their orientation (e.g. defense, international treaties, disputes between states, taxation, etc.)

Any reasonable individual can see where government involvement has caused only to exacerbate problems rather than fix them (the law of unintended consequences). Perhaps the first place we should start is to eliminate the year-round jobs of Congress–and force them to do their work in 120 days like many of the state legislatures. That in itself would eliminate much of the corruption and graft that influences legislation.

]]>By: rikfrehttp://blogs.reuters.com/david-rohde/2012/12/28/a-year-when-government-failed-us/#comment-2454
Mon, 31 Dec 2012 18:12:56 +0000http://blogs.reuters.com/david-rohde/?p=1411#comment-2454the Presidents quote is very amusing. It’s no secret that as long as elected officials take special interest money, there is no representation for the electorate. I hope that I’m around when the electorate wakes up and finds that out.
Elections are not a reality show.
]]>By: JL4http://blogs.reuters.com/david-rohde/2012/12/28/a-year-when-government-failed-us/#comment-2453
Mon, 31 Dec 2012 17:33:51 +0000http://blogs.reuters.com/david-rohde/?p=1411#comment-2453The right earns more blame for government dysfunction because they are the more fanatical. There is no left fanatic group with quite the same depth of desire and commitment to obstructing the American legislative process as our present day Republican party. If there is a left-wing equivalent to the Tea Party, name it here and now.

So, no, the left doesn’t deserve the same weight in blame, and I get testy when the press tries to appease their readers with phony conciliatory statements of equal blame. Those who do are afraid of either their audience, their peers, their bosses, or all three.

]]>By: CaptnCrunchhttp://blogs.reuters.com/david-rohde/2012/12/28/a-year-when-government-failed-us/#comment-2451
Sun, 30 Dec 2012 16:46:22 +0000http://blogs.reuters.com/david-rohde/?p=1411#comment-2451I do not always agree with you sir, but this was an excellent and well balanced opinion piece. We all bear complicity for the way things are, and only with reason and compromise will we ever get close to having things the way we wish them to be.

That our government is confused and seems to have failed us is little surprise since we ourselves speak as a thousand voices instead of one. The answer as with any crisis is to calm down, assess the situation and then act promptly with logic but without haste.

We can each have part of what we want, or none of us will have anything we want.

]]>By: Samrchhttp://blogs.reuters.com/david-rohde/2012/12/28/a-year-when-government-failed-us/#comment-2450
Sun, 30 Dec 2012 14:50:32 +0000http://blogs.reuters.com/david-rohde/?p=1411#comment-2450The voters pay too much attention to images and not what works. Also there are too many offices that voted for which no one but the politicians and their corruptors know any thing about. A reasonable span of control for most managers is 10 people. Therefore a voter should have about that many to vote for. That means eliminating state and local governments.

Hey, what about 1929 and 2008 and do not forget the all the BP deep water problems. We have regulators who do not have the technical knowledge or will to do their job. Anytime we have regulations that are either do not do their job or are too costly a way to do it, government failed.

]]>By: WillShirleyhttp://blogs.reuters.com/david-rohde/2012/12/28/a-year-when-government-failed-us/#comment-2449
Sun, 30 Dec 2012 12:36:48 +0000http://blogs.reuters.com/david-rohde/?p=1411#comment-2449The plutocracy which is America today has evolved from the plutocracy it was when they wrote the Constitution. Many people have gone to the trouble of reading the documents which first created this country and come to understand that it was designed from day one to benefit the wealthy, the white and the landowners, provided they are male. It still works this way because we have not changed anything about the basic construction. It still benefits the few at the cost of the minority. We, the minority, have fewer rights now than we had in the early 1800’s. The mythical Bill of Rights has been rendered meaningless by the last few administrations, especially and oddly enough, the Obama Administration, which is the most secretive in history and continues the “Right” to kill anyone, anywhere, without due process. Obviously this flies in the face of everything we have been told about our nation! Yet we quibble over details, fight over insulting language and continue handing over our rights and wealth to the Noble Few, the white male land-owners who started this thing going when they wanted their tax dollars to be small while their rights and privileges soared to new heights.

Meanwhile, we seem to have noticed that the “news” media has taken a tack which credits out and out lies by the right with truths spoken by the so-called “left”. In fact there hasn’t been a “Left” in America since the 70’s, but any group or person whose political leanings are not firmly fascist are described as “Left”. There are no neutrals, everybody has their opinion and in the sea of words any wisdom is quickly drowned. Nations do not change overnight, nor without fighting and killing of innocents and innocence. As America sends out it’s drones and it’s mercenaries to murder civilians to help our dictators defeat democracies just starting to form we are asked to pay more for the right to be the slaves of the wealthy. And sadly enough the majority of Americans are fine with that idea, just fine, boss.

So what happened? Here’s a clue: look at any piece of electronics in your house and note the country of origin. Check your shoes and hats and appliances and just about anything else. China. China won the Cold War and we were not told that fact. We were told the Big Lie that America won the war and came out on top, but look at who made the control panels in our drones: China. Look who made parts for our cars, toys for our kids, pencils for our schools and Ipads, Ipods, tablets, laptops…all Chinese made. Now our Communist masters require that we buy and buy and discard and buy again and we do that so well. They do not care what political leanings we claim. We quibble among ourselves and kill our neighbors and all while blissfully unaware of our true state, our “client state” for China’s new middle class, it’s new business community. This is why it seems that “WE” don’t have any influence over “our” government. It seems to be listening to somebody else. It is. Our government listens to it’s master.

You and I seldom agree, but I’m “with” you 100% here except for the last half of the paragraph beginning “The fact is…”. When you say “Some the Government wants more of, and encourages their rise, while others Government wants fewer of, and we encourage their fall”, I am confused when you jump from what “government wants”, to what “we encourage”.

In my view, “our” government is a “hive mind” of infinite power conspicuously without loyalty, deference or respect for those who fund it. It has many unrelated agendas, some wholly inconsistent with each other. It has been compared with a huge log floating down the river covered with ants, each one thinking it is steering!

It must want more of the poor because it pays them by the head to reproduce and mature to voting age. It must want more irresponsibility on the part of banks and more loans to those who will not or can not repay them. It must hate the responsible and productive because it takes money from these to give to the irresponsible and unproductive.

Accordingly I cannot “identify” with a government that resists responsibility and accountability at every opportunity. “My” government is an enemy I must eternally watch and be prepared without notice to defend my interests as best I can wherever and whenever possible.

You speak of a “…disliked group…almost 1/3 of the population…” without defining it. Would these be the unmotivated, the uneducated, the unskilled, the long term unemployed, the irresponsible and those who would in any manner “take” from another without giving fair value in return. Guess what? This description includes people from the bottom to and including the top of our society.

You say that “predicting trouble and dysfunction is easy. There will be a continuing tectonic shift in the society, with at least frequent social clashes, if not social disorder. Get used to it.” Well, not really.

In the south during the sixties, “social clashes” were the final convulsion by which our society made genuine progress in delivering on it’s constitutional promise of offering equal opportunity to all citizens. Today many of those same people are just as unhappy because “equal opportunity” has not brought about “equal achievement”. Different matter entirely.

To have a chance at “equal achievement” each student must pay attention in school. They must not disrupt the learning process and they must not drop out before earning a high school diploma or GED.. They must value acquiring the skills each will need for gainful employment and they must understand and accept the concept of personal responsibility to show up on time day after day ready to put in an honest day’s work because those who don’t won’t be able to keep a job if they get one. They should not be too fat to be accepted into a military service. They need to have a husband with a job before reproducing.

If people who don’t do these things instigate social clashes or are responsible for social disorder they will go to jail. The uncivil are NOT part of “civil society”. Productive Americans need not accept such disruption, nor will they “get used to it.” Why should they?